£1million damage in major blaze at Fife recycling facility

The blaze broke out at the Ladybank Waste Facility near Lower Melville Wood on Tuesday afternoon with fire crews still at the scene. Local residents had been advised to keep windows and doors closed with smoke billowing from the site.

Ken Gourla, Fife Council chief executive, provided an update to councillors on Thursday morning.

“Unfortunately with the conditions on the site, the fire took hold and drafted across waste piles,” he said. “Luckily there were no casualties but because of the extent of the fire, very little could be done

“The damage is extensive. The recycling equipment has gone, £1m of equipment has gone. A lot of it has buckled under the heat.

“We have insurance on the site. From a council perspective, we will be liaising on that front but costs to resources are going to be extensive.”

At the time of speaking, Mr Gourlay said the A92 close to the facility was still closed but he said there were hopes this could reopen by Thursday afternoon. Domestic bin collections, at the moment, were unaffected.

“In terms of operations with domestic waste, they are continuing as normal. We are fairly confident we will be able to cope with the waste as per normal. We are hoping operations will not be affected which is good news in terms of recycling.”

Fife Council confirmed that is household waste recycling centre – which is across the road from the site – has not been damaged by the fire, but it remains closed because road access has been restricted by smoke and emergency service activity, and it is also currently without power.

Cupar Recycling Centre is to be fully opened seven days a week until Ladybank can re-open.

“There is still a fair bit of smoke coming off. SEPA have been on site and are monitoring that at the moment,” added Mr Gourlay. “The wind is changing and affecting different communities at different times.”

Acknowledging speculation on the cause of the fire, the council chief said nothing had been determined.

“There has been quite a fair bit of speculation about batteries but we have not had that confirmed,” he said. “There is going to be a review undertaken on the cause and recovery. Hopefully this is a one off but we need to take any lessons learned from this.”

Howe of Fife and Tay Coast councillor David MacDiarmid called for a meeting “as a matter of urgency” to discuss the fire.

“I have some great concerns about what could have happened, and did not,” he said.

“I would like my constituents reassured that going forward if this happens again, we need to find a way of shutting it down quicker.

“They had to cancel Falkland sports day at the school today because of all the smoke coming down. I would like to seek a meeting with my other ward councillors going forward as soon as possible.”

> Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife has called for a summit to learn any lessons from the major incident.

The Lib Dem politician said: ““This fire continues to have a major impact on people in the area around Lower Melville Wood and I know that local people are still exceptionally concerned. This has been a distressing time which has been exacerbated for some who want more information. I have been working to try to get answers from the relevant authorities.

“The priority needs to be on extinguishing the fire. The scale of the operation should not be underestimated and the significant quantities of waste involved have created a major challenge.

“The cause of the fire has not yet been confirmed and investigations will take place once the situation has been resolved. However we shouldn’t waste time to consider what steps need to be taken to prevent this from happening again.

“I am calling for a summit in Ladybank with the Scottish Government, Fife Council, Cireco and other relevant stakeholders to learn lessons on sharing information, health risks, management of waste facilities and the safe disposal of batteries. We need to know what assessments were made of the risks at the site, whether these were increased by the quantities of waste on the site, and whether measures such as reducing or separating the quantities on site would have made a difference.”